Saturday, March 19, 2016

Frank Bigelow is an idiot with a violent temper and the self-control one typically associates with a toddler.

Unfortunately, he pretty much has the Superman suite of super-powers. Somewhat hilariously, he also premiered at the start of the 90s, when Marvel was going through its extreme phase, with overly violent heroes in virtually every title.

I've never read a Fight-Man comic, but the descriptions I've read caused me to write this profile with this question in mind: "What would happen if Superman were an idiot with no basic sense of decency?"

What also stuck out to me is that he really does seem to make most of his own problems - this is a great character to play if you're the kind of player who wants to play a character that makes life more complicated for everyone. Really, he sounds like an ideal character for the Watcher to bring in as an "ally" who's more trouble than he's worth.

Fight-Man

Solo1d6

Buddy1d10

Team1d8

Distinctions

For Great Justice

So, So Hated

Utter Imbecile

Mysterious Powers

Energy Blasts1d10

Flight1d10

Godlike Durability1d12

Godlike Stamina1d12

Godlike Strength1d12

SFX: Berkserk - Add a die to the doom pool to one or more attack actions. Step up the doom pool die by +1 for each action; return it to the doom pool when you’re done.

I picked up the Excalibur graphic novel with some trepidation. I knew several of the characters, but flipping through the pages, it looked really weird and chaotic and . . . oddly British. I can't quite put that into words properly, but it really did. I loved it, though, and the monthly series went on my pull list . . . for about twenty issues before I just petered out.

I don't know which issue it was, exactly, whether it was an issue of the characters or the plot or the art, but I distinctly remember lifting it out of my folder at One Million Comics and thinking, "Meh," and just removing it.

About two years later, I picked up an issue on a whim and it was . . . something. I think I must've come in mid-arc because there were all of these characters who barely got name-checked but were obviously main parts of the story, including a sullen, spiky-haired teenager with mystic powers. That, it turns out, was Feron. He seemed like a jerk, but now I understand why.

He was destined from birth to take on the mantle of the Phoenix Force when the Anti-Phoenix appeared. He was waited on, hand and foot, and never permitted to touch the ground because when he did, the Phoenix Force would come to him. Only when he did, the Phoenix Force was already in Rachel Summers. Awkward.

I'm not entirely certain when that surly pre-teen was recast as the albino love-child of Matthew Broderick's character from The Name of the Rose and Neil Gaiman, but evidently that did happen and his character improved. A bit. Maybe. It's all a little fuzzy.

Anyhow, this is my first turn at a mystical-type character, and I think it works well. I can definitely see this being a fun character to play, and might consider doing so myself some time.

Feron

Afffiliations

Solo1d10

Buddy1d6

Team1d8

Distinctions

Called By Destiny

Phoenix Child

Youngling

Mystic Training

Enhanced Durability1d8

Flight1d8

Mystic Blast1d10

Mystic Resistance1d10

Mystic Senses1d8

Sorcery1d10

SFX: Multipower - Use two or more Mystic Training powers in a single dice pool at -1 step for each additional power.

Wow. How the heck did the a hero from this time period show up in . . . oh, there was an All-Winners Squad book with Father Time in it a few years after this published. That's cool.

So, this guy is yet another relatively tired Batman knockoff. His shtick is that he ran out of time when trying to prove his father's innocence, so he did what any reasonable businessman of that time period did - he put on a pair of long-johns, grabbed a hood, and set out for great justice.

Still, whether as a time-travelling hero or a period piece hero, he's really kind of cool.

Father Time

Affiliations

Solo1d10

Buddy1d6

Team1d8

Distinctions

Always Leaves A Calling Card

Driven To Right Wrongs

Time Works Against Me

Time Gear

Enhanced Durability1d8

Scythe1d8

SFX: Clever Tool - Add a 1d6 and step up your effect die by +1 when using Scythe to create stunts.

Saturday, March 12, 2016

Tryco Slatterus, the Champion of the Univ-wait, wait, no, the Fallen One. Oh, man, was that a delicious plotline Wasn't that great.
And, sincerely, I have to give credit to Marvel for this - they waited over 20 years before making him fall, and then they gave the title to She-Hulk. For a misogynist ass like him, that had to hurt.

Anyone, Tryco Slatter, former champion of the universe, is an Eternal dedicated to perfecting his physical form, and the face that his first words in comics weren't "Dost though even lift?" will no doubt haunt Tom DeFalco until his dying day.

Seriously, though, look at that cheese-monkey. receding hairline, excessing long hair casually tossed across his shoulders, ornate bracers, skin-tight trunks and leggings, and a champion belt that looks like he made it in auto shop. He's a total and utter meathead, and utterly obliviously about it, and I kind of love that he's been one of the bigger movers and shakers in a couple of cosmic plotlines despite that.

This write-up is pretty much immediately after his defeat, when he's as the weakest he's ever been and may ever be. I think if I were the boost him up, it would be mostly with bonus SFX, although I might go a little cosmic and give him some extra affiliation dice, especially for solo, when he's at his peak.

By the way, I don't know how many more Elders there are in the books I'll be doing, but I intend to give all of them an "Eternal [Power Set]," representing that this is the thing they've always done. I'm not sure if that's confusing, though.

Fallen One

Affiliations

Solo1d10

Buddy1d6

Team1d8

Distinctions

Chauvinistic Pig

Disgraced Champion

Smarter Than He Looks - But He Don’t Look Smart

“Eternal” Champion

Godlike Durability1d12

Godling Strength1d12

Superhuman Reflexes1d10

Superhuman Speed1d10

Superhuman Stamina1d10

SFX: Dangerous - Add 1d6 to your dice pool for an attack action and step back the highest die in the pool by -1. Step up stress by +1.

SFX: Immunity - Spend a die from the doom pool to ignore stress, trauma or complications from poison, disease or radiation.

SFX: Immortality - Spend a die from the doom poor to ignore a source of physical stress.

Limit: Exhausted - Add a die to the doom pool and shut down an “Eternal” Champion power. Activate an opportunity to reactivate that power.

Specialties

Acrobatics Expert1d8

Combat Grandmaster1d12

Cosmic Expert1d8

Menace Master1d10

History

Tryco Slatterus is one of the Elders of the Universe, a survivor of one of the first races to become sentient after the Big Bang. Like all of his fellow Eternals, he has dedicated his life to a single pursuit - in his case, combat. He claims to have defeated millions of foes over the years, and has defeated many of Earth’s greatest champions since his first appearance.

Despite his less subtle pursuit of perfecting individual violence, he was also a major player in the efforts of his fellow Elders that resulted in most of them being banished from Death’s realm, becoming effectively immortal, and later was the recipient of one of the Infinity Stones, the Power Stone, which eventually drove him to not just defeat his opponents, but to kill them, and sometimes even wipe out their host planets.

Eventually he was outwitted, outmaneuvered and outfought by She-Hulk, who trained hard for her fight and tricked him into giving up the Power Stone. He is now plotting with one of She-Hulk’s greatest foes, Titania, to help gain his revenge.

Personality

Tryco is a braggart and a bully by nature, and even those who are allied with him generally do so because he’s powerful and strong, and thus an expedient ally, not because they like him.

Under the influence of the Power Stone, that braggadocio was heightened and his bullying turned to cruelty and sadism.

Now that the Stone, and his championship, have been stripped from him, he’s angry, bitter and unpredictable. All anyone can know is that he is going to do his best to hurt She-Hulk as much as he was hurt.

Abilities & Resources

Tryco is astoundingly strong and durable, having spent a million lifetimes perfecting his physical body at the expense of all else. While he had the Power Gem, he relied heavily on the extra power it gave, and some of his abilities slipped a little bit as a result. He is a highly trained combatant, a master of the martial arts of thousands of races.

He relies on friends, allies and even fight promoters to get him from place to place, lacking the capacity to use his cosmic power to travel through space on his own. Despite his personality, he still has admirers in some parts of the universe who are willing to help him, and he is at least on speaking terms with his fellow Elders.

The Eternal Brain is an excellent example of the kind of thing that can happen to a Marvel character with a too-long history and too-little care to its continuity.

On paper, he's a classic 40s science action hero - a humble researcher working on prolonging the human consciousness, his daughter is kidnapped by a lesbian on behalf of an Asian stereotype, and in the process he's turned in a brain in a jar. Y'know, as happens.

The character was picked up later, where he's now a tiny, shrunken "homunculus" that gets installed in a series of robots, finally settling on Walkabout, a physically powerful form that enables him to join a wartime era group of heroes named Front Line before dying in battle against an alien threat.

But wait, there's more - recenter events, it was revealed in the pages of a comic where an anthropomorphic duck faces off against an army of zombies that he's actually an Eternal, like Ikaris, Thena and the rest of Kirby's lovely creations, who focused his mighty cosmic energies on developing the power of his brain. And, of course, sacrifices himself by exposing his tasty brains to an invading horde of zombies and getting eaten.

I'm going to pretend that last paragraph didn't happen, because it's really, really dumb. We're going with Eternal Brain just before his final and heroic death.

Eternal Brain

Affiliation

Solo1d8

Buddy1d8

Team1d10

Distinctions

Action Science Hero

Brain in a Jar

Hidden Past

Walkabout

Enhanced Reflexes1d8

Enhanced Speed1d8

Flight1d8

Superhuman Durability1d10

Superhuman Stamina1d10

Superhuman Strength1d10

SFX: Boost - Shutdown your highest rated Walkabout power to step up another Walkabout power by +1. Recover power by activating an opportunity or recover during a Transition Scene.

SFX: Second Wind - Before you make an action including a Walkabout power, you may move your physical stress die to the doom pool and step up the Walkabout power by +1.

Limit: Complex Gear - Shut down Walkabout and gain 1 PP. Take an action against the doom pool to recover.

The Brain

Mind Control1d8

Psychic Resistance1d10

Psychic Senses1d8

Telepathy1d10

SFX: Area Attack - Add 1d6 and keep an additional effect die for each additional target.

SFX: Burst - Step up or double a The Brain power against a single target. Remove the highest rolling die and add 3 dice for your roll.

Limit: Exhausted - Shutdown a The Brain power to gain 1 pp. Activate an opportunity or recover during a Transition Scene to recover the power.